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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



MASSACHUSETTS 



AND 



SOUTH CAROLINA 



CORRESPONDENCE 

BETWEEN 

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 

AND 

WADE HAMPTON AND OTHERS OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 



Office State Central Executive Committee, 

Sept. 22, 1868. 
To the Hon. John Q. Adams, Boston, Mass. ; 

Dear Sir — We have the honor to make an appeal to you 
in behalf of our common country. We earnestly beg that you 
will consent to visit us at Columbia, and deliver an address to 
our people. We assure you that within three days we could 
have an assemblage of 10,000 people present to hear the words 
of peace addressed by Boston to Columbia. What stronger 
reply could there be to the misrepresentations of the Radicals, 
than to hear " John Quincy Adams" talk of Union and frater- 
nal relations on the soil of South Carojina? 

Would it not be as if the past were speaking to the present ? 
Would it. not seem as if the grave had given up her dead, and 
they were holding counsel of the future? 

It seems to us that your visit here, received as it would be 
by our people, would send an electric thrill from one end of the 
country to the other. We ask no holiday performance for po- 
litical or party effect. We invite you to a consultation upon 



Fk7V 
• As? 



living principles of our free institutions. With us it is no 
longer a question of party, but a question of social life. 

When the South was beaten in the field, it became her hio-h 
resolve to restore and strengthen the Union. Must not every 
sane man see that this was her only policy ? That the Union is 
now of the very last importance to the South? More impor- 
tant than to any part of the country. 

Must not every sane man also see that in the very nature of 
things slavery is dead forever? Has not every Southern State 
put her name and seal to the deed? But beyond this, did not 
every Southern statesman see that with the result of the war 
slavery could not stand ? That it must cease to be a domestic 
institution, because it had become an international (so to speak) 
cause of war. 

Are there no statesmen left among those in power who can 
see this ? Or do they see it and are they basely using the hopes, 
the peace, the very life of the country to advance personal or 
party interests? 

Let us hope that God in his wisdom may turn the hearts of 
those who know the right, yet pursue the wrong, and strike the 
scales from the eyes of others, who are really in the darkness 
of ignorance, and therefore easily the dupes of their better in- 
formed leaders. 

Pray answer us immediately, and appoint an early day for 
your visit here. We shall require but short notice to make the 
necessary arrangements to welcome you in a becoming manner. 

The policy of the South is peace — it is her only hope. You 
will see this with your eyes, and hear it with your ears, should 
you accept our invitation. If you would telegraph to ua your 
acceptance, we could be ready to meet you by the 5th of Octo- 
ber. Wednesday, the 7th, would probably be a better day. 
Very respectfully, your fellow citizens, 

WADE HAMPTOiS, JNO. P. THOMAS, 
JAS. DAN'L POPE, W. B. STANLEY, 

F. W. McM ASTER, 

State Central Executive Committee, Columbia, S. C 



MR. ADAMS' REPLY. 

QuiNCY, Sept. 28, 1868. 
Messrs. Wade Hampton, Jas. Dan'l Pope, F. W. Mc 
Master, Jno. P. Thomas and W. B. Stanley. 

Gentlemen : Your letter of Sept. 22d reached me on the 
26th, and I found it to require such careful consideration that I 
have withheld my answer until now. My first impulse was to 
accept your invitation at once, and hasten to respond to your 
appeal upon the instant; but a moment's reflection, and a 
review of your letter, restrained me. I am as anxious as you 
can be to see kindly relations and fraternal feelings replace the 
sore and angry suspicion which prevails upon both sides of our 
land, nor would any labor daunt me in such a cause ; but I am 
more powerless than you are to promote such a result. You 
greatly exaggerate any influence of mine, misled, doubtless, by 
the accident of an historic name. I represent nothing in ]Mas- 
sachusetts, but a comparatively small and very unpopular mi- 
nority, and am regarded as hardly less objectionable, though 
far more insignificant than yourselves by the majority. Nothing 
that I could do or say, if I visited you would be likely to re- 
ceive a fair or candid construction. My action \a ould be attrib- 
uted to partisan or unworthy motives, and yours to the invete- 
rate animosity which is still believed to animate the South. 

In spite of any protests of ours it will be insisted that we had 
some " disloyal" intent in our meeting. I do not urge these 
apprehensions as reasons for an absolute refusal, for I should 
try to face my share of the obloquy with such fortitude as I 
could muster, if I saw a fair chance of aiding, be it never so 
little, a better understanding between the sections. 

But as you seem to anticipate an important effect on the 
North from the reception which you might off'er to me, I think 
it right to disabuse you of the error. Nor do I think that I 
can say those things to your people which would be delightful 
to them to hear, or pleasant for me to speak. Your fate has 



been, for the present, involved by the inexorable logic of events 
in a most bitter political struggle. The interest, and I doubt 
not the convictions, of the dominant party will prevent any dis- 
passionate consideration of your case until after the election. 

It is declared, and I fear it is widely believed, that the spirit 
of secession still fires the Southern heart, and works through the 
Democratic party. A mass of honest men are taught and be- 
lieve that the success of that party means the political re-estab- 
lishment of the genius of revolt, and the^elevation to power of the 
Southern leaders in the late war. Now, while I do not believe 
tliat if the wide-spread suspicion of this intent could be dis- 
charged from the minds of our people here, there would be a 
great difficulty in obtaining a fair hearing, it is too potent a 
weapon of party warfare to be relinquished during this contest 
or the Presidency. If the Democratic party is defeated in this 
canvass it will be because the people fear its success would 
jeopardize the substantial results of the war. Now, upon this 
point the Northern mind is absolutely determined and no party 
could maintain itself which should repudiate the war or surren- 
der its acquisitions. For my own part I think it would be very 
difficult to get rid of any of the logical and legitimate results of 
the war if we tried to ever so hard, but still our people are very 
sensitive on that point. 

I cannot see for instance, of what value your pet dogma of 
the constitutional right to secede would be to you, even if we 
granted you a dispensation to proclaim it on the house-tops. 
Constitutional or not, it will never again be practicable, except 
in the form of revolution, and that is an extra constitutional 
right which can not be taken away from any people. Slavery 
I take to be stone dead, for the reasons you very clearly and ably 
state in your letter me. It would never again be of any value 
to you if you had it back, and the ghost of it, which is so much 
dreaded at the North, the phantom of involuntary servitude for 
poverty and color, as a punishment for vagrancy which haunts 
so many well-meaning men among us, would speedily become 



a burden so odious and so intolerably expensive that If for no 
better reason, you would be glad to drop it. But at the same 
time you must yourselves be well aware that the hasty and in- 
considerate legislation upon this subject in two or three of your 
" States lately in rebellion" did more to fasten universal suf- 
frage upon you than any other one thing. The North is well 
aware that there is a wide distinction between civil rights and 
political privileges, nor were our wisest and more practical 
statesmen of the Republican party at first inclined to adopt the 
dangerous experiment of placing political power in the hands of 
your poor, ignorant field hands upon a mere fanciful theory of 
the natural equality of man. Doubtless a citizen of Massachu- 
setts who is utterly illiterate may be my superior in all manly 
qualities, but unless he can read the Constitution in the English 
language he is not my equal politically. 

The principle is here admitted that we may and must temper 
theoretical equality with practical tests of fitness for public duty. 
Now this was ignored In your case, because it was urged and 
believed that thus alone could the blacks protect themselves, 
and it was said that any admitted qualification would be abused 
by you to their total exclusion from the franchise and conse- 
quent helplessness. The Northern people, having freed the 
slaves and left them still mingled with their former masters, 
could not, with decency or humanity, abandon them naked to 
the savage enmity which they were taught to believe you felt to 
them, nor could they calmly look on to see those oppressed of 
whose comfort and happiness they had become the guardians. 
The Northern States pardoned the palpable usurpation of a 
power never granted to Congress, upon the plea of necessity. 
Universal suffrage was no necessary corollary of the war ; it 
was extorted by distrust, offspring of the long slaveiy^agitation. 
That gave enormous power to the class of politicians who preach 
the perfect -and complete wickedness of the Southern white. 
These same men urge, and they persuade many, that you still 
cherish a devotion to the " Lost Cause," which does not content 



itself with the hopeless tenderness which we feel for the dead, 
but is ready to take arms again at the least encouragement. 
These fears mingle largely in the canvass, and will exert a 
strong influence in the result. I think that distrust and fear 
have dictated your terms, more than malice or revenge. It was 
not cheerfully that the North sacrificed the Constitution for 
which it fought so long. For my own part, I have never felt 
any apprehension of losing any of the proper results of the war. 
I have always believed that you must from necessity yield them 
as frankly as we claimed them. I have never doubted that it 
was possible to treat you, after your surrender, in such a way 
as to enlist your aid and engage your sympathies in a constitu- 
tional restoration of the Union, and yet secure freedom and 
fairness to the black, and tranquillity and happiness to the 
whites. As you very forcibly say, there is no policy possible for 
you but peace. War now would be your utter destruction. 

The Union is of more value to you than to us, and to the 
Constitution alone can you fly for protection. A general and 
cordial confidence in your attitude, feelings and protests is essen- 
tial to your peace and prosperity. We must renew the old 
spirit within us, or the new Union will be an empty form. 
Even if by a party success in a very close vote at the North, 
aided by your own efforts at the South, you obtain a temporary 
relief from your abject state to-day, your condition will still be 
precarious, your path full of snares, and a true Union as dis- 
tant as ever. So long as one-half the North is persuaded that 
you have the will and the power to jockey them out of w lat 
cost them so dear, we attempt to rebuild our Union on the sands. 
Time alone and a patient and enduring persistence on your 
part in well-doing, in the face of all discouragement, can 
effectually remove the cause of your ills ; a palliative will but 
induce a reaction ao;ain. A cheerful concurrence in the essen- 
tial principles of democratic and constitutional government I 
regard as requisite for your peaceful progress in the future. 
Inclining to these opinions, I should have excused myself from 



accepting your kind Invitation had you not expressly disclaimed 
any political Intent. 

I do not wish to make any political speeches to your people 
in the interest of any party, nor add new bitterness to your 
already dangerous position. But as I have felt the evil very 
much of late, that of our own knowledge we were so little in- 
formed of the real needs, and wishes, and purposes of each 
other ; as I cannot feel sure that I may not be of some use, 
and as I deplore with all my heart the distracted and dissevered 
cojidition of our once united people, I will meet you as you 
request, as fellow-citizens should meet, in times of difficulty, to 
consult with you upon our duty at this time. I shall try to 
speak frankly rather than agreeably, and I shall hope for equal 
sincerity in return. I need not assure you that what I have 
written has been dictated by the kindest feeling. I am not in- 
sensible to your trials and sufferings : the loss of friends, pros- 
perity and power, and exclusion from all part or lot in voting 
away your last pittance is bitter indeed. But, hollow as the 
ordinary platitudes sound in the sufferer's ear, may It not be In 
the good providence of God to prove to the uttermost the qual- 
ity of your people and lead them through these dark ways to a 
higher and noble career beyond. 

I at least am determined to hope so, and I doubt not may 
live to see the day when we shall all be once more a happy and 
united people, dwelling in peace under the protection of the 
Constitution and within the gentle clasp of our old Union. 
Then, Indeed, South Carolina and Massachusetts may cordially 
embrace, and the fortunate spokesman of my State, that day, 
will represent the whole instead of a fraction of her people. 

I shall leave home on Monday next and proceed without 
delay to Columbia. 

I am, gentlemen. 

Your friend and servant, 

JOHN Q. ADAMS. 



SPEECH OF JOHN QUINCT ADAMS, 

AT COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA, 

OCTOBER 12, 1808. 



My Fellow Citizens of South Carolina : 

I have come to speak to you here to-day, from my distant 
home in Massachusetts, at the earnest request of your State 
Central Executive Committee, to consult with you upon the 
" living principles of our free institutions," in the hope that our 
meeting may in some degree, however small, tend to promote 
a better understanding, a kinder feeling, and ultimate harmony 
between the mass of white people here, and a very large por- 
tion of the people of the North, and especially of my own State ; 
and I am here also to learn from your own lips your wishes and 
intentions upon questions of public policy which most nearly 
affect you. 

You have also been told that I am a grandson of one of the 
earliest opponents of your j^eculiar institution, and I will tell 
you myself that I was an ardent, though humble supporter of 
Mr. Lincoln ; a hearty friend of his administration ; always in 
favor of an energetic prosecution of the war while it lasted, and 
that I hailed with gratitude the abolition of slavery. I had long 
regarded it as a dangerous element in our Federal polity, and 
certain at some time or other to jeopardize the existence of the 
Union and the authority of the Constitution. Sooner or later 
the conflict between the two systems of labor, the free labor of 
the North, and the slave labor of the South, was sure to come. 
It did come, and has passed away, with terrible suffering, and 
now the South lies bleeding and faint, and almost despairing, 
looks vainly for the sign of promise in her dark horizon. You 
ask each other in vain what shall we do? Where can we go? 
Whence cometh our salvation? 



I will tell you, my friends, frankly at the outset, that I be- 
lieve that your redemption must be your own act, that your fate 
is in your own hands at last. I do not mean to deny that your 
condition from time to time may be influenced by the fluctuations 
of the heady political fight at the North, but I suspect that 
your permanent welfare will mainly depend on the power you 
may develop now to grasp firmly, and embrace sincerely the 
fundamental principle of our Government, as settled by the war 
— a constitutional Democracy. That principle seems to me a 
recognition of the equal rights of all men under the law, or to 
stretch it as broadly as possible, the right of every man to 
think, speak, and act as he wishes, provided he does not, by so 
doing, infringe the equal right of his neighbor. I do not re- 
gard political privileges as rights in this sense at all. The gen- 
eral welfare of the community must regulate their distribution. 

This is all very well, you may say, but it oflTers no present 
and pi-actical solution of our difficulty. It is very much like 
telling a man who is suffering from intemperance, that his only 
permanent cure must come from his adherence to the laws of 
health. And I agree with you in that view. We are now 
suffering terribly, both North and South, from political intem- 
perance. You were guilty of it, when you did all in your 
power to rupture the Union by force, because you would not 
trust the question of slavery to the people under the Constitu- 
tion. We are guilty of it now, when we will not restore the 
Union under the Constitution ; because we mistrust the people. 
What is needed in the first place, is moderation and calmness, 
and a habit of patience in politics. We are inclined to be im- 
pulsive and headlong in our devices. Waiting and watching, 
relying on slow but sure processes, has never been very popu- 
lar with any people of our race, and is peculiarly distasteful to 
us; but, my fellow-citizens, this disagreeable discipline is, in 
^y judgment, precisely the training we all of us are in need of, 
and I think it essential to your happy deliverance. Let us 
come down to the actual facts of your case, and try to look at 
2 



10 

them calmly, dispassionately, and without prejudice. It is al- 
ways foolish to deceive ourselves, and in your case, to mislead 
you knowingly, would be a crime. I shall therefore speak with 
frankness and plainness. 

You began the war down here at Sumter, under a claim of right 
to defend yourselves as an independent State which had exercised 
a reserved right to secede from the Union, and I take it that no 
one denies that the cause of that action was the apprehended 
danger to slavery from the result of the election of 1860. You 
fought for your side of the controversy for four years, with a 
desperate determination and courage, until at last you were com- 
pelled by the fate of battle to surrender. You had allied your- 
selves with other seceded States, arid formed a confederacy 
which claimed an equal rank among the nations. You pro- 
claimed slavery its corner-stone. In the stress of conflict, as a 
war measure, justified by the emergency, and as a means of 
distressing you,. your slaves were proclaimed free. The North, 
on the other hand, insisted that no State could secede under the 
Constitution, and that the whole proceeding on the part of the 
South was an insurrection of a portion of the people of the se- 
ceding States. It is far from my intention to revive old contro- 
versies or reopen settled disputes, but I must state the facts to 
bring us to our present position. You claimed to be a sover- 
eign State, and on your own showing were by the laws of war 
subject to any terms the victor might impose. It did not lie in 
your mouths, therefore, to demand any rights in the Union you 
had broken, or any remedy from the consequences of your own 
acts under the Constitution you had renounced. If we were to 
accept your own theory of action you were alien enemies, and 
your land conquered territory, and so subject to the naked laws 
of war alone. But the North had always denied every one of 
your positions, and had insisted that you were never out of the 
Union ; that your resolutions of secession were simply void ; 
that you could not cease to be citizens of the United States by 
any such process, and that, of course, you were liable, when 



11 

taken, to the pains and penalties of treason. To be sure, this 
theory was necessarily infringed a little in practice, as in respect 
to exchange of prisoners, and the observance of the same laws 
of warfare that obtain between independent States. But this 
was the accepted faith. The war was to subdue insurrection, 
not to conquer a nation ; you were defeated rebels, not van- 
quished alien enemies ; and the Union was re-established, not 
extended, over your territory. 

It was upon this theory that the Government of the United 
States proceeded at first to renew what were called the practical 
relations of the States to the Union, and you gladly accepted 
this view of the case, and did all in your power to resume your 
vacant place. Now it has always seemed to me that you, by 
your acts at that time, gave all the proof in your power that you 
abandoned the principle for which you fought, accepted the de- 
cision of your wager of battle, and bowed to the supremacy of 
the Constitution. You were offered, and you ratified, an 
amendment to that instrument absolutely and forever abolishing 
slavery. You manifested, so far as I have ever been able to 
see, a disposition to take us on our own terras and renounce all 
you had fought for ; pay in full the stake for which you had 
played and lost. To be sure, you had no choice, and you could 
not then have complained had you been treated for what you 
claimed to be — alien enemies — but you might have been sul- 
len and refused to do anything. You did the best you could 
do, as I have always thought, and I think the North would have 
done the very best thing she could have done to have taken you 
back in the fine temper in which General Grant reported he 
found you at that time. I do not know. You people here may 
be different from any people I have ever seen or known, or read 
of, but I think it would have been best to have then taken you 
cordially by the hand, told you that we believed your promises, 
accepted your word of honor, and that bygones should be by- 
gones. Besides, I think we were in good faith bound, after you 
had acceded to our own terms and acted upon them, when 



12 

offered by an authority which you believed, and I still believe* 
vras adequate to act bindingly in the premises, to complete the 
transaction. Much as you were interested in so doing, I think 
the North was even more so ; I think it would have restored 
the Union with the least shock to its frame-work and with 
the least possible strain to the Constitution. 

Congress, however, interfered, tore asunder once more the 
knitting fracture, because they averred the cure would never be 
fair and sound by that process, and adopted another. Their 
first attempt Avas the 14th amendment, which they offered you 
as a dose preparatory to adjustment. But it was not stated to 
be final, and there is much controversy at the North as to your 
reasons for rejecting it. If it was the suffrage clause which de- 
cided your action, I think, looking at it from your position, you 
were wrong. If you could not swallow the clause requiring you 
disqualify your leaders, my heart tells me you were right. I 
hope I shall never lisp one word of reproach against any man 
who refused to go back from his chosen foremost men at such a 
time ! But, at any rate, its submission to you at all showed 
that thus far Congress stuck to the Northern theory of the con- 
test. But next came an entire change of base, and Congress 
abandoned the Nortliern view of matters entirely, and thus late 
in the day came over to the camp you had been beaten out of, 
as the more tenable position of the two. They took up your 
old ground, and insisted that you were, after all, alien enemies ; 
your country conquered territory ; yourselves prisoners of war, 
and your rights of every kind forfeited. This is at bottom the 
meaning of the reconstruction acts under which you now live. 
They are based on conquest and the right of the victor in inter- 
national warfare. I do not think that this was, upon a com- 
prehensive view of the general and permanent welfare of the 
whole people, a generous, a wise, or a constitutional course to 
take, but it has been taken, and now we come to the difficulties 
of the position. 

As things in fact stand, what is best for us to do ? How 



13 4r 

can we best modify or remedy existing evils ? The case would 
be puzzling enough at best, but the addition of the element of 
universal negro suffrage, perplexes it tenfold. Then it is com- 
plicated by a multitude of conflicting theories, prejudices, and 
passions, here, as well as at the North, and the circumstances 
of peculiar political excitement attending a Presidential election 
in which this very question of your proper status is the vital 
issue, render it well nigh impossible to arrive at satisfactory 
results. The best consideration, however, which I have 
been able to give the subject, has brought me to some conclu- 
sions, which I offer with great diffidence, but in entire good ■ 
faith. I propose to try to escape from our difficulties, by re 
versing the process that brought us into them. When you ap- 
pealed to arms to decide a disputed question of constitutional 
construction, and set the fate of slavery on the ordeal of battle, 
you took, as it seems to me, the first irrevocably false step. 
You refused to abide by the decision of the tribunal provided 
by the Constitution, and you would not accept the verdict of the 
people, rendered under the constitutional forms, when adverse 
to you. The barriers which had been provided for just such an 
emergency, you, in heat and impatience, threw down. No 
written constitution can possibly be made strong enough in it- 
self to restrain the people, unless they themselves are wise and 
calm enough to see, even in their hottest moments, even when 
the temptation to grasp a coveted object or secure a threatened 
end, is most overwhelming, that in the long run and upon a 
balance of contlngences, they will be happier by observing scru- 
pulously their self-imposed limits. They may have to lose or 
defer a cherished hope, that they may not by-and-by be obliged 
to suffer a dreaded ill. But the passions which the slavery 
agitation aroused, were too fierce for argument, too impatient 
for the tedious processes of law. 

The second step was taken by us when we broke from Pres- 
ident Lincoln's calm, peaceful, and constitutional way, and 
dashed our mad course in our turn through the organic law. 



* 14 

Mr. Lincoln's mind was legal and moderate, and he moved 
carefully in a well-considered path. Mr. Sumner's mind is 
theoretical and extreme, and very impatient of restraint. He 
must leap to his end, even if the heavens fall; and upon him 
eventually fell the mantle of leader of the Republican party. 
To his inspiration, more than any other man, is due the recon- 
struction acts. The same madness ruled the hour which had 
already wrought your ruin. Your leaders could not brook their 
threatened fate in the Union ; ours, could not postpone for a 
moment their promised fortune. It seems to me, if we trace 
out the process, it is the same in the one case as in the other. 
It was in both cases what I have called political intemperance. 
Neither party had faith enough in their cause or fellow-citizens, 
or patience enough in natural or regular methods, or confidence 
enough in the supreme law which our fathers gave us to bide 
their time, in the assured conviction that the greatest good for 
all must eventually result. You have suffered the penalty of 
your intemperance, and you are feeling its effects bitterly to- 
day. "We, too, if I am not very much mistaken, have a day of 
reckoning in store for us, a painful sobering from our debauch. 
If we persist, it is impossible for any tolerable government to 
continue long, for it will degenerate into a mere squabble of 
contending factions, for a chance to oppress, for a time, their 
less active or less numerous opponents. 

Now you can see clearly enough to-day where your interest 
lies. If you invoke the Constitution it is not hard to find the 
reason. You need most terribly just that protecting medium 
interposed between you and the governing majority. A consti- 
tution is meant for just that, to mitigate and distribute the blows 
of majorities. Some day, I have no doubt, we shall see in 
Massachusetts the merit of its operation as clearly as you do 
now, but I fear that it will not be until we are in a minority 
and look in vain for the shield we threw away to ward some 
threatened blow. But to you, my friends, this necessity is 
pressing, is overbearing. Something you must have, you think, 



15 

or perish. Now without going so far as that, 1 believe that the 
very best thing for you to do is to try to get back within the 
Constitution of the United States. You are yet substantially 
prisoners of war, held by military force, and liable at any time 
to further orders from the majority. I do not intend to speak 
disrespectfully of your State Government, and I would espec- 
ially urge the utmost obedience to 'your de facto rulers ; but I 
take it that it would not be long insisted upon here if it was 
understood that the North took no manner of interest in it. 
You want the original principles of the Union restored ; the 
right of the States to manage their own domestic affairs with- 
out the interference of the General Government, and the mani- 
fold checks and balances and distribution of powers which our 
ancestors devised, readjusted ; and I agree with you that it is 
your only practicable escape from the jail which Radicalism, 
North and South, has made of your good old State, so far as 
you are concerned. 

And this brings us to the key of our discussion. How can 

this be done? Why, how did it happen to need be done I 

mean the last and proximate cause of your present unprotected 
position ? It was, as I think, mainly because the extreme, im- 
patient, and fanatical portion of the governing party were en- 
abled, partly in consequence of Mr. Lincoln's death, and partly 
by the indiscretion of the South, to overpower the calmer and 
more moderate men in the party and wield its whole force 
against you. Now I know that it is likely that many of you 
may feel a general and indiscriminate detestation of the Repub- 
lican party, involving the whole array in the denunciations 
which you would like to launch at their accredited leaders. 
Now, gentlemen, this feeling is not unnatural, and it is one of 
the worst results of the bad government you suffer that it makes 
men feel so ; it fosters a blind, indiscriminating enmity to its 
rulers among its subjects ; but in your case it is very unwise to 
mdulge it, and it is very unjust to a large section of that party. 
There are hosts of wise, calm, kind, and moderate men in that 



16 



party. There are multitudes who feel no more unkindness to 
you than I do ; there are many thousands who deplore and dep- 
recate the course which has been taken in dealing with you — 
a majority of that party, as I hope and pray, love tlie Consti- 
tution as well as I do, and regret its infraction as deeply as I 
do ; but yet they can see no alternative but to go with it to-day. 
The fact is, that distrust, suspicion, fear, has more to do with 
your sorry plight than anger or malice. I have not always 
thought so ; but I have thought so of late. There was cer- 
tainly a feeling of soreness, a rising of the gorge, at the thought 
of the reappearance of your old leaders in conspicuous places, 
but the strongest cards which the Radical leaders held were dis- 
belief in your vows of allegiance, want of confidence in your 
professions respecting slavery, fear for the future of the freed- 
men, and a deep distrust of yom: patience and good conduct in 
such matters as free discussion, forbearance with difference of 
opinion, and the right of unmolested travel or settlement among 
you. Perhaps you are aware how gravely such doubts and 
fears have compromised your case, but it may be wholesome if 
distasteful to review these wide-spread suspicions and opinions a 
little in detail. Of course, nothing could tend more strongly 
to justify the severe measures of the Eepublican party towards 
you, or secure to them more surely an indefinite extension of 
political power, than to be able to persuade the North, which 
in the early days of peace was inclined to place a generous con- 
fidence in your professions of a sincere and absolute acquies- 
cence in the event of the war, and your purpose to abide in good 
faith by the decision, that you were dissemblers and dishonor- 
able perjurers, that your purpose was to redeem by hard swear- 
ing what you lost by hard fighting, and you yourselves in many 
cases furnished the material for making evidence against your- 
selves. Part of it was legitimate and part was very unfair, but 
it was all eagerly caught up and unsparingly used. If you 
had been a dangerous foreign foe, whose utter destruction was 
necessary for our safety, greater pains could hardly have been 



17 

taken to inflame the people against you, and close their hearts 
to your appeals. I doubt if Cato took more trouble to show 
the Roman people that Carthage must be destroyed, and Punic 
faith must have been very bad indeed, if it was represented to 
be worse than your own. Every hasty word, every natural 
regret, every expression of pride in the memories of the old 
campaigning days, every ebullition of heat, was carefully remem- 
bered and spread before the North. If an irresponsible news- 
paper editor or reporter published a foolish and inflammatory 
article, it was instantly pounced upon and scattered all over 
the North, to show that the mass of Southern feeling was as 
rebellious as ever. If you made any attempt to take part in 
politics, you were bent on revolution; if you refrained, you 
were sullenly plotting a new insurrection. The peaceful pres- 
ence of delegates at the Convention in New York was a 
plot, and the resolutions were dictated by you, and your only 
object was to seduce the Democratic party into a new war. 
These devices, and a thousand more, have been used so long and 
so well that it is no wonder that they produced a very great 
effect. 

The person or the paper cited against you may have been so 
obscure as not to have reached your notice here, or so low as to 
preclude serious attention on your part, or the wnter or the 
speaker may have been garbled or falsified ; but it made no 
difference. The contradiction or disproof came after the dam- 
age was clone, and was not published to the same audience 
which had seen or heard the charge made. The antidote was 
powerless to reach the poison. Nor were your intentions re- 
specting slavery satisfactory. It was urged that it had become 
so Ingrained, that you could not of yourselves refrain from hank- 
ering for it, and the wish would ripen into deeds if the chance 
were offered. It was useless to urge your consent to the thir- 
teenth amendment, for if you ever had the power, you would 
surely denounce your action therein as done under duress and 
void. If one asked to be shown some conceivable method by 
3 



18 

which, under the circumstances, such a consummation could be 
practically arrived at, the only answer was, " Where there is a 
will, there is a way." It was useless to urge that if slaver} 
was at best, an expensive establishment, it now would be worse 
than valueless. Nor could the very men, who had always 
proved, this very fact, and declared further that you were sitting 
on a powder magazine, even w^hen your slaves were most iso- 
lated, most ignorant, most guarded, and absolutely unarmed, 
see that now when they had tasted freedom, been stuffed with 
new ideas of their rights, unwatched and bristling with wea- 
pons, any attempt to re-enslave them would be the act of a 
madman, who plunges a flaming torch into the black grains of 
powder beneath him. The distrust upon this head was mostly 
fostered by intrepid statement, and supported by vague but pas- 
sionate declamation. 

But on another cognate subject, your own people furnished 
weapons, which were used with disastrous eflfect against you. 
I think that universal suffrage was probably forced on you 
when it was, and as it was, by the vagrant laws, which several 
of your Southern Legislatures passed soon after the war closed. 
These were instantly paraded to prove that you were determined 
to restore slavery in the person of her sister, enforced servitude 
for po\erty, or, if not, yet it was urged that you were unfit to 
be left in charge of the freedmen. Now there are doubtless 
grave difficulties in the problem which this vast, ignorant, and 
from want of education and training, frequently thriftless and 
vagrant population, presented to you for solution. The embar- 
rassments are also more apparent to you 'on the spot than to 
those unfamiliar with the surrounding and preceding circum- 
stances. But admitting, for the sake of argument, that the 
laws were needful, humane and wise, they were exceedingly in- 
opportune and unfortunate for you. The North was naturally 
exceedingly sensitive on this point. The slaves had been manu- 
mitted by us for our own ends, and if we left them exposed to 
your anger, or caprice, or vengeance, it would indeed be an in- ' 



19 

dellble stain upon our escutcheon. We liad become guardians 
of the freedmen, and we must be faithful to our trust. The 
most calm and moderate men were as clear as the loudest and 
most noisy, that it was an undoubted obligation on our part to 
secure by all means in our power, their security and happiness. 
It had long been urged that it was impossible to insure safety 
for the blacks among you, except by arming them with the 
franchise, and your vagrant laws added the practical proof 
which was alone needed to clench the theoretical deduction. 

Again, it was vehemently asseverated and shown by innumer- 
able letters from all kinds of people, that, in their opinion, it 
would be impossible for a man holding strong Northern opin- 
ions about slavery and the war, to come down here and speak 
freely or travel without molestation and annoyance, or to settle 
here with safety. It was said that free speech was dangerous, 
open discussion prohibited, or allowed only under protest, and 
persecution for political opinion universal. It is very generally 
believed by us that if you had your own way you would endure 
no contradiction and tolerate no dissent, and it is published 
every day that even now the negro voter is freely coerced by 
you to vote against his conscience. My purpose is not to dis- 
cuss the justice of these charges or their validity, but to state 
them to you clearly, to show the process which has aided in 
fixing your present condition, whether they are true or false. 
The fact that they were used as the most potent engines to 
build up and sustain a public opinion which could sanction and 
support the reconstruction acts, discovers at once that a general 
belief in their truth was at all events considered by the Radical 
leaders essential to their purpose of showing a determination 
on your part never to yield us peaceable possession of what we 
had won by the war. And this misgiving and suspicion it is, so 
engendered and nourished, which you must overcome before you 
can have peace. 

For the North is determined, as I believe, to retain and es- 
tablish, as the legitimate results of the war, these general posi- 
tions, with all the logical consequences necessary for their con- 



20 

venient enjoyment : first, the utter renunciation of the doctrine 
of secession ; second, the entire extirpation of slavery and all its 
family ; third, a fair and unhampered career for the freedmen ; 
fourth, the equal right of every citizen of the United States to 
travel, speak, and live in any State, so long as he does not in- 
fringe the rights of others. I do not believe that any consider- 
able portion of the people would be willing to sacrifice any part 
of these acquisitions. The most effective battery against the 
Democratic party to-day is, that they are willing to abandon to 
you some or all of these trophies. If it were conceded on all 
hands that you were faithfully and unalterably determined never 
again to struggle by force or fraud for their restoration, and the 
bare question was whether the Constitution should be restored 
or reconstruction maintained, I think the result would never be 
in doubt. The great desideratum, therefore, for your restora- 
tion to constitutional privileges seems to me to be first to de- 
serve, and then to obtain, the confidence of our Northern commu- 
nities in your acquiescence in good faith in these results of the 
war. But you will doubtless say, " We have deserved it; we 
have done our best to obtain it ; but we have failed, and we are 
growing careless and desperate of ever securing It, do what we 
will." My friends, you must remember that confidence is at 
best a plant of very slow growth, and when surrounded by an 
atmosphere so hostile as ours the only wonder is that it is not 
utterly killed. You must not forget that we are in the midst 
of the most exciting election ever held, and it is the passion of 
a few, the interest of many, and the business of a multitude to 
defeat the Democratic party. You must bear in mind that you 
yourselves by your exertions in favor of that party which seems 
to you not unnaturally just now your only means of escape 
from misery, encourage misunderstanding and inflame suspicion. 
In view of all these facts I do not think you can look for a 
candid and tolerably dispassionate review of your unhappy case 
until after the Presidential election at least, and probably not 
until some time has elapsed after it, to allow the fermentation 



21 

inseparable from it to subside. The gravest misfortune which 
I apprehend from delay arises from the tendency of misgovern- 
ment to harden discontent into disaffection, and exasperate the 
sense of injury into a sentiment of settled resentment. This 
deplorable result is likely to happen — nay, it is almost sure to 
follow, if you do not summon your utmost patience and forti- 
tude. I pray you, my friends, to struggle with all your might 
against the inroads of discouragement and the temptations of 
despair. If you can muster the endurance to wait calmly, and 
labor honestly and heartily for your redemption, your reward, 
if late, will be rich and abundant. I cannot believe that a 
people which has shown such power of intense and prolonged 
exertion as yours did in the war, will prove lacking in the high 
quality of patient self-command, and especially when your 
whole future depends upon it. What else can you do ? The 
idea of a second appeal to arms is madness. It is the dream 
of the suicide which could alone induce you to " take arms 
against a sea of troubles, and, by opposing, end them." If any 
of you, in the inmost recesses of his heart, has ever harbored 
such a thought, banish it at once and forever. Better, ten 
thousand times better, for yourselves, your wives, your daugh- 
ters, and for your country to " bear the ills you have, than fly 
to others that you know not of." As your committee truly and 
wisely say in their letter of invitation of me, " The policy of 
the South is peace, it is her only hope ; you will see this with 
your eyes and hear it with your ears ; " — and I have seen with 
my eyes and heard with my ears, and I am persuaded that all 
this people know that they are right and feel as they do upon 
this point. 

I fear also that the admission of all the negroes in these 
States to suffrage, and the exclusion of substantially all the 
leading men of the South from a share in shaping your 
constitutions and laws, coming when it did and as it did, will 
seriously aggravate the difficulties which beset your way back to 
a cheerful and peaceful re-establishment of mutually satisfactory 



22 

relations. Taken by itself I think you might render universal 
suffrage tolerable Avith universal amnesty. I imagine that many 
of its more alarming features would disappear, or be very much 
ameliorated. The tendency of this portion of the reconstruction 
policy to encourage a class of political demagogues to stir up 
strife and ill-feeling between whites and blacks here upon which 
to found their own political fortune, is undoubtedly one of the 
gravest defects of the system in its practical working. It em- 
bitters relations which might be cordial and must be friendly if 
you are to dwell together in peace and prosperity. And here 
again I must urge you to be patient, and difficult though it be, 
to call a little philosophy to your aid. Such a convulsion as 
you have experienced must needs leave a multitude of lesser 
ruptures in its train, which require time more than anything 
else to readjust. With a return to constitutional government, 
I think that even universal suffrage, supposing it was found 
necessary to let it stand as it is, as a choice of evils, (for I 
certainly regard it as an evil here,) might be made compatible with 
good order, good government, and good feeling. Considering 
the relations which formerly existed between the two races, and 
the great advantage which the wealthy, educated and intelligent 
landowner is always found to possess in agricultural communi- 
ties, I think you can hardly deprecate or dread competition with 
adventurous strangers upon a fair field of rivalry. 

Your legitimate and proper influence, fiiirly exerted, must 
prove in the long run more persuasive than that of strangers or 
others who are lacking in these advantages. At least, this has 
been the general experience in other countries. But in order 
to secure a secure a fair opportunity even to try the experiment, 
it is essential that the dangerous element of hostility of race 
should be kept out of the calculation. If that poison once 
fastens firmly on your vitals your political future is desperate, 
or curable only by an antidote which I cannot contemplate 
with calmness. 

Next, then, to peace, I think, you are bound to cultivate 



23 

friendly relations with the negroes among you. Your true 
interests are identical, and their identity must, in time, become as 
apparent as it is demonstrable. You should spare no efforts and 
no practical measures in your power to show this clearly, both by 
word and deed, to the freedmen. You have no right to forego 
this exertion ; an honest and manful attempt now may save you 
incalculable mischief by-and-bj^ I do not see, nor have I been 
able to discover during my stay am.ong you, that you do as yet 
cherish any ill-will to the negro. I have found but one senti- 
ment of kindness expressed towards him ; and why should it be 
otherwise? He was faithful to you in your years of struggle. 
He never, when he might, rose upon your defenceless homes. 
When you were at the front he did not free himself. If he is 
ignorant it is by no fault of his, and it should be your care, as 
it certainly is your interest, to instruct him. If from ignorance 
and inexperience he is liable to be abused and misled, it is your 
place to protect and direct him. If he is poor and distressed, it 
is your duty to help him if you are able ; and all this you know 
and feel as well as I do. 

And on the other hand I would say to the colored men here 
at the South, that I entertain the kindest feelings to them, and 
feel a very deep solicitude for their permanent welfare and hap- 
piness. In all sincerity I would tell them that I fear that their 
present importance in politics is likely to be used for purposes 
which are dangerous to their ultimate well-being. As they are 
situated, a condition of permanent alienation and hostility be- 
tween them and the whites can only issue In disastrous results 
to their eventual prosperity and progress. To both whites and 
blacks I would counsel the most forbearing and patient con- 
sideration for each other. Your cases are difficult enough at 
best. For God's sake do not make them hopeless by needless 
misunderstanding, or anger or ill blood. I think that even if 
you were free to do as you liked, that a wise policy would dic- 
tate the education and gradual enfranchisement of the negroes 
as fast as they were fit for it. No free people can afford to 



24 

perpetuate ignorance among its people, for ignorance is its in- 
ternecine enemy. Xor do I think that any statesmanlike policy 
in a republic can suffer any permanent exclusion of any class of 
its citizens from a share in the government of the common- 
wealth. 

I know we have had movements at the North, looking to 
some such policy in regard to foreigners, as many sincere men 
are now urging upon you in reference to the colored people. 
The cry of " America for Americans," has been as loud and 
more popular than the shout that " this is a white man's gov- 
ernment." I can adopt neither, and I beg you not to be 
tempted by your present evils, to make the latter your political 
shibboleth. Be far-seeing and generous enough to take a loft- 
ier stand and see this broad land to be the refuge of the op- 
pressed of .all nations, and of all colors, where their civil rights 
are respected and an interest in the common Government is 
conceded as soon as a due regard to the safety and good order 
of all will permit. Nothing can be a more fruitful source of 
discontent and disturbance than the existence among you of a 
caste hopelessly excluded from political privileges. 

My friends, I am trespassing upon your kindness ; but upon 
a subject so broad as the one we are considering to-day, it is 
impossible to be concise. Your relations to the political parties 
of the North, have a very important bearing upon your fate, at 
all events just now, and demand careful meditation. Most of 
you doubtless regard the success of the Democratic party as es- 
sential to your release from your present situation ; but it is my 
duty to remind you that men in your position have no right to 
be bigoted partisans. You must, of course, feel a deep interest 
in the success of those who espouse your cause, and you may 
properly exert all legitimate influence to promote their interests ; 
but you ought not to shut the door to aid from any source. I 
have already deprecated unreasonable and undistinguishing hos- 
tility to the Republican party ; I would now warn you against 
an absolute and exclusive devotion to any party. If tlie De- 



25 

mocracy succeed in electing their candidates, you will be sub- 
jected to temptations as trying as the demand upon your suffer- » 
ance may prove, in case General Grant is chosen. Hasty, ill- 
considered, passionate, violent action in the event of Democratic 
success, would be almost sure in the end, to turn to your dis- 
comfiture, and render your last estate worse than the first ; and 
yet it will require a good deal of self-command to control the 
reaction from this depression. But the country even in that 
event, will be so evenly divided and so greatly excited, that a 
small thing may induce a terrible catastrophe. On the other 
hand, in case of General Grant's election, you will be called on 
to exercise a while longer your patience and forbearance. I 
am sure it will be rewarded in the end. I do not believe that 
General Grant is your enemy. I feel sure he means kindly to 
you, and will try to do justice and show mercy in his course to 
you. A large mass of Republicans will help you if 5'ou will do 
your best to help yourselves. A great majority of all the 
North, only wait to be sure it is safe to take you cordially by 
the hand once more. Bide, then, your time in either event. 
Possess your souls in patience. Call to your aid that grandest 
of human qualities, self-control, and all will yet be well. This 
nation has had too much of violence and headlong haste. You, 
in particular, have had a terrible warning against heat and 
passion. Keep cool, and watch your chance, come whence it 
will. Above all things, do nothing to render it more difficult 
than it now is for either party to return to the constitutional 
system. If you favor haste and passion in the Democratic 
party, or by impatience strengthen the hands of the extreme 
men in the Republican party, you equally retard the coming of 
your only sure salvation — a re-establishment upon safe and 
lasting foundations of the temple of constitutional liberty which 
our fathers reared. Keep your eyes fixed steadily upon this as 
a pole star to steer your political course by. Stop your ears to 
the blandishments of this temptation of immediate relief on the 
one hand, or that seduction of gratified passion on the other. 



26 

Summon all your self-restraining manhood, and you shall sail 
safe between the Scylla and Charybdis which perplex your way. 
My friends, I have almost done, and I will detain you but a 
moment longer to suggest some thoughts which, as a citizen of 
•Massachusetts and a native of New England, have long occu- 
pied my mind and seem to me appropriate to this meeting on 
the soil of South Carolina. Separated as our States have been 
for many years in sentiment, their substantial interests are very 
similar. Their material wants and products are correlative. 
Their political interests are likely to be identical, and their 
popular characteristics are counterparts. I do not mean by 
counterparts that they are alike, but that one is the supplement 
of the other. The one cold, cautious, and thoughtful ; the 
other warm, impulsive, and impressionable. Combine these 
qualities and you double their power by regulating and econo- 
mizing their force. Nor need we look far to foresee their 
political affiliation in the future if all goes well. The policy 
of the seaboard States in reference to the great questions of 
financial, industrial, and commercial interest which must inevit- 
ably replace the incidents left by the war as soon as they are 
disposed of, can hardly fail to be nearly related. The next 
great political division promises to be one of water-sheds rather 
than of sections. The great interior basin can and will, if it 
likes, dictate to the outer slopes of the mountains, and they 
will need a good understanding among themselves and a pretty 
cordial co-operation of measures, and a good strong constitution, 
too, to retain and uphold their present place in the general 
policy. Look, too, for a moment, at their industry and pro- 
ducts. We of New England are naturally, and I hope we 
shall always be, a ship-building, sea-going, commercial people, 
carrying, and fishing, and toiling everywhere upon the face of 
the waters. You produce the cotton, and rice, and timber, 
and turpentine, which we carry and consume. We are deeply 
interested in manufactures which you desire, while we work 
up your raw material with ,our busy spindles. I cannot 



27 

dwell upon details, bnt if T am at all right in my idea, we can 
be mutually useful to each other. Whether this be so or not, 
there has long been enmity between us. Let it be so no 
longer. We have cherished our dislike, magnified our causes 
of complaint, and brooded over our wrongs. Let us foi'give 
and forget. With slavery its cause, let all ill feeling cease. 
Let us be friends and brothers once more, as our forefathers in 
the grand old days of the revolution were before us. In the 
name of that common heroic ancestry, by the memories of 
every battle-field of the War of Independence, let our dissen- 
sions cease. Let good will and brotherly love cast out old 
bitterness, and let us all hasten the day when Massachusetts 
and South Carolina may stand once more, hand warmly 
grasped in hand, under the old ancestral roof-tree, and beneath 
the old flag. 

My fellow-citizens of South Carolina, I thank you for the 
attentive audience you have given to me, although I fear I have 
been tedious, and perhaps some of my views are distasteful to 
you. I have carefully avoided any attempt to stir your feelings 
or amuse your minds. It does not seem to me an occasion for 
eloquence if I had it, or humor if I felt it. I am deeply and 
seriously impressed with the difficulties under which you labor, 
and the dangers which threaten our system of government, and 
J^ have spoken seriously because I felt serious. Whatever may 
come of it, I shall feel amply rewarded if by any chance I may 
have turned one l^art to a calm, patient, earnest, honest effort 
to forward, so far as in it lies, the restoration of the Constitu- 
tion and the Union. 

At the conclusion of the address of Mr. Adams, Mr. Wade 
Hampton being loudly called for, arose and addressed the 
meeting in these words : — 

Gentlemen : Knowing your desire to hear from the other 
side of the Union, your Committee have made every effort to 
induce Northern statesmen to come to this section, and we have 
at last succeeded in bringing one before vou who bears the great 



28 

historical name of him whom Jeiferson called the defendei* of 
the Declaration of Independence. He came to talk to you 
firmly, calmly, and considerately, and he has done so. I only 
in turn desire to say a word or two for South Carolina, or at 
least for a large portion of South Carolina. I wish the gen- 
tleman to carry back with him to his people the assurance that 
upon the issues of the war the people of the South are a unit. 
They are now, and always have been, in the same perfect good 
faith with which they surrendered, and they now, and have 
always recognized the questions of slavery and secession as 
settled forever. So far as I am concerned, I assert and claim 
to have been of the first to accept the results of the war, and 1 
did so fully and cordially. I recognized the freedom of our 
former slaves, and was the first man in the State to address the 
colored people and tell them they were free. I want you, sir, 
moreover, to tell your people that the people of this State, in a 
Convention held a short time ago, in which twenty- one districts 
were represented, declared their willingness to give to the negro 
the same suffrage that he was given in Massachusetts. That 
same Convention declared, too, that the people are not willing 
to grant universal suffrage, but that they recognize slavery as 
dead forever, and the}' do not desire, nor are they willing to 
permit it to be reestablished in any of its phases or forms. 

A word in relation to myself. I have been the victim (^ 
great, wilful, and malicious misrepresentation. The Radical 
papers and leaders have accused me of disloyalty, and to sub- 
stantiate their charges, they have taken up and garbled my 
alleged statement that the clause " Reconstruction acts are rev- 
olutionary, null, and void" in the Democratic platform, was my 
plank, — that I dictated it. To this point I refer, because our 
distinguished and esteemed guest has referred to it in his very 
able address. Now I here deny that I made any such state- 
ment. I did not dictate it. I did say that it was my plank in 
the platform, and it is the plank of every Southern gentleman. 
I was on the Committee to frame the platform, and the South- 



29 

ern delegates on that committee felt themselves as guests only, 
and resolved to express no preference in the nomination going 
on, and to take no steps in the interpolation of any plank in the 
platform. We were willing to leave the entire matter in the 
hands of the great Democracy of the North, feeling assured 
that they would do us at least full justice. The only resolution 
I offered in that Committee was one pledging the support of 
the South to the Judiciary of the United States, and proposing 
to leave the matter of the status of the Southern States in their 
hands for final adjustment and settlement. In the progress of 
the debate which arose upon this, a Northern delegate expressed 
the hope that we would not press the point, upon which every 
Southern delegate withdrew whatever resolution he might have 
offered. A gentleman from Michigan uttered the assurance 
that in the event of the success of the Democracy, the South 
would find relief from her troubles ; that the " Reconstruction 
acts of Congress would be declared revolutionary, null, and 
void." I then said •' if those three words were inserted in the 
platform, it would be all we could ask — we would be satisfied." 
These words were inserted by a distinguished son of that glori- 
ous little State, Connecticut, and were unanimously adopted. 
That was the extent of my revolutionary action in New York. 
I am glad the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts has 
come among us to see for himself and learn our condition and 
wants. I want him to go back and tell his people that we may 
be mistaken, but we are honest, sincere, and truthful. He will 
do that, I am sure, and in doing that he will have done much 
towards accomplishing his mission of peace, of good feeling 
and harmony, a mission in which I am rejoiced to be also en- 
gaged. 



Printed by J. E. Farwell & Co., 37 Congress St., Boston, 



02 iii^i^. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



001 930 589 2 



